Tips for Grandfathers

GRANDCHILD
VISITS

by Conrad Veazey Brown

How can you get your grandchildren to
associate a visit to their grandparents' with something exciting to do
when they get there? Is there a way to create a "draw,"
something special just for them?The
great traditional grandparent draw is a treehouse for young boys, a
playhouse for girls (closely rivaled by a dollhouse). If the idea of a
house in the trees makes you a bit nervous, then a girl's playhouse easily
converts into a boy's clubhouse. A sign over the door will give it
authenticity. It's important, however, that the boy choose the name.

For an experienced amateur carpenter,
a playhouse makes a good summertime project. If you'd like to build one
from scratch, the Southern Forest Products Assn. (1-504-443-4464) PO Box
641700, Kenner LA 70064-1700 will send you its free Plan #818 for building
a 35-square-foot "American Gothic" playhouse. Its
"spire" requires 12 feet of vertical clearance.

A step down the ease-of-construction
ladder are Handy Home Products' two ready-to-assemble kits for building
simple wood playhouses, a 4' x 4' x 5'-high Cabin and a 4' x 6' x 6'-high
Swiss Chalet, which cost around $300 and come with a 15-year warranty.
Call 1-800-221-1849 for the name of the dealer nearest you—likely to be
a lumberyard.

Walpole Woodworkers (1-800-343-6948)
can ship you from Massachusetts (via motor freight) an attractive little
six-foot-square playhouse six feet tall, with a porch that extends another
20 inches; cost $1,195. Ask for their color brochure.

Pre-fab playhouses, shipped in as many
as 20 sections, are available from Lilliput Play Homes (1-724-348-7071) in
Finleyville PA. Its seven models vary in cost, from the simple
"Storybook Bungalow," $2,499, to its fancy "Victorian
Mansion," $4,399, which features stained glass windows, corbels, roof
rails and cedar shingles. There are some 24 options. One of the models is
a little eight-foot-by-five-foot firehouse, $3,599, with a second-floor
firemen's quarters and a fire pole to slide down. It comes with a fire
alarm bell and fire hose with a nozzle. But most intriguing of the choices
is not an outdoor playhouse at all but an art deco "Nickelodeon
Theater," $3,399, which sets up indoors and comes with a ticket
window (and tickets), lighted marquee with changeable sign, interior with
steps leading up to a peanut gallery, and a miniature proscenium to hold a
TV and VCR or serve as a puppet stage.

If you do not pour a concrete slab or
concrete footings for a backyard playhouse but just raise it off the
ground on flat stones or pavers, and if it is under 100 square feet, it
will be considered a "temporary" structure in most U.S.
localities and probably not come under local housing jurisdiction.But check with your town's code enforcement people to make sure you
don't need a permit.

David Stiles' wonderful Treehouses
You Can Build, $18, from Houghton Mifflin (1-800-225-3362), presents a
variety of treehouse designs, some of which require only one or two trees
for support and a few that are really little boys' "forts"
raised up on stilts. Like Stiles' other books, it is profusely illustrated
with clever, appealing drawings. The author is an industrial designer and
illustrator; the easily understood construction directions stress
sturdiness and safety. With a treehouse like one of these to play in when
they come for a visit, your grandchildren will be the envy of their peers,
and you will have an unbeatable draw.

However, keep in mind that perhaps not
a playhouse but most certainly a treehouse calls for adult supervision
when kids are playing in it. You don't want any rowdy behavior leading to
a neighbor's child getting hurt and you getting sued. In today's litigious
society, gone are the days of our youth when we climbed a rope ladder to
the backyard treehouse and hauled it up after us in splendid isolation,
protected from the neighborhood bully. If you decide to put up a treehouse,
a wooden stairway with railings, twisting its way up the tree is obviously
a lot safer than a ladder—and you will find such a design in Stiles'
book. A sturdy padlocked gate might be a good idea, or even a chain-link
fence, to seal off a treehouse when grown-ups aren't around to watch the
kids.

Whatever you may decide to put up,
playhouse, clubhouse or treehouse, you virtually guarantee that the kids
in the neighborhood will be over to play when your grandchildren come for
a visit; they won't lack for little friends.

One way to build anticipation in your
grandchildren when a visit from them is scheduled, is for you to make what
amounts to a movie trailer of the attractions waiting for them when they
arrive. Go around with your camcorder to some of the places you expect to
be taking them and shoot some very short, intriguing highlights to whet
their appetites for the fun in store. If you don't have a computer, you
can easily make a title to shoot with easy-to-use Press-Type, available at
art stores or large stationary stores. Or ask a neighbor who does have a
computer to make up a spectacular title for you, and shoot that.

When little grandkids are coming to
visit, be sure to resurrect the child safety measures you applied when
your offspring were toddlers. Install childproof snap-in covers on any
electrical outlets not in use; move medications and household cleaning
substances out of reach; attach childproof locks to lower cabinet doors;
install a gate at the head of the stairwell; move houseplants and
breakables out of reach; secure dangerous windows; review the
instructional manual that came with the CPR course that (hopefully) you
took; check your phone book for the location of its page of emergency
numbers, including that of the poison control center.

Set aside a trunk or big box for old
clothes, hats, shoes, gloves and other items that you intend to give away,
but which little kids can use to play dress-up when they come to visit.
Young children think it's cool to put on grown-ups' gear. And when the
container gets too full, you can have the grandkids come along when you
take the excess to The Salvation Army store.

Build a plywood toy box with a hinged
top and paint it bright cheerful colors. Then stock it with toys, games,
books and some simple sports equipment, like a badminton set or a softball
and bat for your grandchildren to have fun with and look forward to when
they are coming for a visit. If you have a nice wide, dead-level yard, a
great sports equipment choice is a croquet set. It makes a big hit with
grandkids, and you have a fair chance of beating them at it if you
practice beforehand. For additional ideas, ask Genesis Direct
(1-800-284-5383) to send you its Training Camp catalog of sports equipment
for kids.

Few grandparents have problems with
obstreperous grandchildren left in their charge. The principal is, if they
love you they will behave themselves to please you, and mostly that works
out. But if you're going to have your grandchildren in your charge for any
length of time, it's a good idea to establish with their parents the
parameters of good behavior well ahead of time. You may find they have
quite different ideas on discipline from yours.Spanking, even a swift smack, is a no-no these days. Child
psychologists stress that children seek limits; they're going to test you
to see how far you will go, how much they can get away with. Better be
ready and have a strategy lined out. If yours are wild little bandits when
they come to visit, best advice is to head 'em off at the pass:

The
very first time they begin to get out of hand, sit them down and
explain that in your house you expect them to behave in a manner
conforming to your view of society's tenets of civilized behavior.
"You don't act like this when you're at home, and you're not going to
act this way in my house." Before imposing discipline, stop and
decide, is this infraction all that important? Most childhood explosions
are self-limiting.

Of course, you have to set a good
example. Don't neglect to control your temper, or you won't be able to
reprimand from strength when a little kid loses his. Try balancing
firmness with loving praise. But let your grandchildren know you mean what
you say by not overdoing the praise and by not turning on the firmness
unless a child's actions warrant it. Try to hold off on punishment in
favor of that old reliable strategy, distraction.

When you've got unruly kids to deal
with, games are the great distraction. Cards, checkers and chess are fine,
but board games have the edge when it comes to holding children's interest
through a long rainy afternoon, or any other time you want to entice them
away from television. Here are some of the best:

Monopoly

Scrabble

Parcheesi

Trivial Pursuit

Battleship

Yahtzee

Sorry

Clue

Payday

Chutes & Ladders

Candyland

Good manners sometimes seem to get
left by the wayside today, with both parents working in most American
families and much of life catch as catch can. If you discover, when your
grandchildren come to visit, that they seem ill at ease at the dinner
table, take that as your cue to bring up the matter of good table manners.
Explain that when they grow up they are going to have to know them and use
them not only when they are invited out to dinner at someone's house, but
as guests at business, civic and social functions. Then serve notice that
once you and Grandma teach them the ropes, your grandchildren will be
expected to practice their table manners during every sit-down meal with
you.

The same should go for good manners in
general. You can ask them to practice proper deportment in your house
whenever guests come to call, standing back, then coming forward to shake
hands and say "How do you do" as they are introduced. Persuade
your grandchildren that they should also introduce their friends, and if
they need it, gently remind them that "please" and "thank
you" are expected in polite society.

Good manners make such an important
difference, both in casual circumstances and on more formal occasions,
your grandchildren will be grateful to you and Grandma someday for having
made them tow the line.

When pre-teen grandkids come to visit,
introduce them to other kids their age. Friends' children and neighbors'
children can become lifelong friends with your grandchildren. Invite an
older grandchild to bring a good friend with them, once in a while, when
they come to see you.

It's almost inevitable that your
grandchildren are going to run out of things to do when they come for a
visit. At times like these, rental videos fill the gap. It's also great
fun to schedule a "screening"—with fresh-popped
popcorn—mixing rental videos with a few you may have shot yourself. But
don't be upset if the kids become restless and wander away. American
children are so saturated with moving images that many are secretly bored
with "virtual reality" and keenly desire the real thing. Proof
is in how joyfully they greet any promise of a true-life experience.

That said, here is a list of video
movies, all of which are highly appealing to children. Film critics rate
most of them as movie classics. You may be able to find the vintage ones
in older video establishments in your area; those guys never throw out a
cassette. Some of these titles are bound to be familiar to your grandkids,
so it might be a good idea to run down the list with them before renting
just to make sure you have an audience. But don't neglect a marvelous film
like Great Expectations merely
because they may never have heard of it.

The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Ann
of Green Gables--1985 version

Baker's
Hawk—western for children

Benji—a
dog story

Blackberries
in the Dark—a boy copes with loss of his grandfather

The
Black Stallion

A
Christmas Carol--1951 version

Columbia
Pictures Cartoon Classics—tops!

David
Copperfield--1935 version

A
Dog of Flanders

E.T.
the Extra-Terrestrial

The
Golden Age of Looney Toons

Great
Expectations—the 1946, or the much longer 1989 version

Heidi--1965
version

He's
Your Dog, Charlie Brown—animation

Homeward
Bound: The Incredible Journey—two dogs, one cat

It's
the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—animation

Jacob
I Have Loved—a tomboy learns a thing or two

Jungle
Book—rent the 1942 version starring Sabu; colorized

Lassie
Come Home—a dog and a boy

The
Little Rascals—collections available on single videos

Mary
Poppins—with Julie Andrews

Mr.
Magoo's Christmas Carol—animated

My
Side of the Mountain—boy and raccoon

Old
Yeller—dog story

Our
Vines Have Tender Grape—two kids, fine and funny

The
Pied Piper of Hamlin

Pinochio—the
wonderful 1940 Disney classic

The
Prince and the Pauper—1978 version

Prince
Brat and the Whipping Boy

The
Railway Children—adventure comedy

The
Red Ballon—a radiant Paris, no dialogue

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi—animated
Kipling

Ring
of Bright Water—amusing pet otter

The
Secret of Nimh—animated mouse

The
Secret of Ronin Innish—kids on an island

Shiloh—boy
rescues mistreated dog

Shipwrecked—a
boy's adventures at sea

Sleeping
Beauty—1959 animated version

The
Sound of Music

To
Kill a Mocking Bird—three great kids

Treasure
Island—1990 version is superb

Very
Best of Bugs Bunny—Volume 1 is best

Walking
on Air—boy and NASA

What's
Up, Doc? — excellent Bugs Bunny

Whistle
Down the Wind—trials of childhood

White
Fang

Wilbur
and Orville: The First to Fly

The
Wind in the Willows—1949 and 1983 versions, both terrific

The
Wizard of Oz

The
Yearling—boy and pet fawn

Yellow
Submarine—animated Beatles

You're
in Love, Charlie Brown—animated kids

Next time a grandchild is in the
hospital gather up his or her friends and playmates for a my-gang
visit—especially important if the patient can't be home for a birthday.
You supply transportation to the hospital as well as the firm voice of
discipline when the kids get there. You might like to take some of your
grandchild's buddies to a toy store the day before to find some little
presents for the patient to play with in bed.

Bring kids and grandkids in for a
family reunion on a major holiday. Even though it may be difficult for
distant members to make the scene, there are few more meaningful ways of
drawing an extended family together.

You want to visit your children and
see your grandchildren who live in a distant town, but their house has no
guest room. You don't want to spring for a hotel or motel, the charges
mount up too fast and you're on a tight budget.You and your wife are going to have to find somewhere to stash
yourselves, cheap. Cheap but nice. Consider house-swapping, even for as
short a time as a week. You can phone in a classified ad to the
all-advertising publication that covers your children's area and see what
turns up—but you'd better get at it at least a month ahead of time. With
a swap like this, you can ask your offspring to act as your agent and
drive around and check out the houses and the people who say they are
interested.Your kids can
show them pictures of your place and answer questions. If car-swapping is
part of the arrangement, better make sure that both party's auto insurance
is paid up.